1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to saw teeth, and more particularly to saw tooth inserts which are secured to the outer peripheral edge portion of a saw plate.
2. Prior Art
Many saw teeth and saw tooth inserts have been designed for various special applications such as producing a smooth surface where wood or other material has been cut, taking out large amounts of material as rapidly as possible where smoothness of the cutting edge is not as important, or for cutting through particular types of material.
In the case of rough cutting of lumber such as at a saw mill, for example, to which the present invention is more particularly directed although it could be utilized in many other situations, the saw teeth have generally been designed with the idea of removing as much material as fast as possible in order to maximize the economic efficiency of the lumbering operation. To this end, many teeth have been designed which basically provide a leading cutting edge at the top of each tooth and various contours of side surfaces to reduce friction between the cutting edge and the work piece being sawed. A more recent form of design of this nature is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,901,114.
In the lumbering industry in particular, the teeth are usually formed as inserts which are then secured by brazing or soldering to a saw plate of conventional design in which a gullet is formed in the saw plate below the tooth, and the tooth is mounted on the backing portion of the gullet. This construction permits the chip cut out of the work piece to be removed radially inward on the saw plate and be disposed of as the tooth passes through the work piece.
This basic construction has been one of the major limiting disadvantages associated with such prior art tooth designs in that the size of the chip of material removed from the work piece is limited since it is difficult to remove larger chips without creating a binding between the saw tooth and the work piece. This is particularly true in the case of a helical saw such as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,504,718 which permits each tooth to make only a single pass through the work piece since the piece is continuously moving laterally through the saw.